“I have heard about this ride, and I have always wanted to do it,” Faith said, nestling against Josh to allow for more people to be seated. “This is a perfect day.”
It only took minutes to load the tram, close the door, announce the safety instructions, and they were off. The wheels emitted a soft hum and the desert floor fell away. The mountains to the north became much taller than they had looked at the station, and the mountains to the south came into view over the horizon. Sharp faces of granite formed long shadows in the morning sun, the station at the bottom of the tram disappearing as they floated over the first ridge. For a short time, the summit of Sandia Peak disappeared. Some wild goats were visible in one of the crevices to the south.
“This is really beautiful,” Faith said, craning to see all vistas along the way.
“It sure is,” Josh said. “Look, there’s even some snow.”
Emerging from the tram, the cold air was shocking. Josh zipped up his coat and pulled on a stocking cap. “Boy, it’s cold up here.”
“Yes,” Faith said, buttoning her coat and pulling up her hood. Following the decking to the south, Faith was fixed on the mountains to the south. “I wonder how far you can see. Hundreds of miles, I bet.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “It’s amazingly clear.”
Together, hand in hand, they walked to the south end of the deck. From there, they identified some landmarks in Albuquerque, looked at a map poster showing Rio Rancho just beyond Albuquerque, the Jefferson Mountains in the distance to the south, and out over the Navajo Nation to the west. “We are five thousand feet above Albuquerque, it’s no wonder is it so cold here,” Josh said.
“We need to explore some of this state when we get some time off,” she said. “Just listening to Angie talk about Shiprock and the Monument Park area, what I’ve read of White Sands and the Carlsbad Caverns, there is a lot to see.”
“You know those are all a long way from here,” Josh said. “This state is enormous. Carlsbad is a four-and-a-half-hour drive. Shiprock’s almost four.”
“Yeah. Remember Betsy? She was from Farmington and said it was three hours, and Shiprock is beyond that. But it would be fun anyway. We haven’t even been to Santa Fe and that’s only an hour.”
They moved toward the gift shop and found a map of the hiking trails atop the peak. “Do you want to explore one of these?” he asked.
“Of course. Let’s go.” She started toward one of the wider trails leading toward Sandia Crest, apparently uninterested in planning by map.
“Hey, wait!” he shouted when he noticed she was a hundred yards away. He ran to catch up.
“It’s nice up here,” she said, marching along bobbing her head from right to left. “I wonder if that’s Santa Fe,” she said and pointed to a developed area against the mountains to the northeast.
“I imagine. I don’t think there are any other cities in that direction.” He picked up a large pinecone and handed it to her.
She looked at it in her hand. “This is huge,” she said. “You could play softball with this,” and pitched it at him.
He caught it in his hand, looked at it again, and threw in back in the general area where he had found it. For a distance, the pine needles crunched under their feet, the snow squeaked, and the gravel growled its opinion. Birds flitted around from tree to tree, the sun blinked between tree trunks, and the shadows of branches played tag along the trail.
In a few more minutes, she was out against the edge of the ridge looking down into the canyon, thousands of feet below. “This is amazing,” she said. “Look, you can see the trail go all the way around the canyon and disappear at the bottom. Is that the trail you take if you want to walk down?”
“I think so,” he said. “We should try that, but maybe in the summer.”
“Good idea.”
At this point the trail had narrowed, and there was snow on both sides, especially under the trees. She picked up a ball of snow and threw it at Josh, completely missing. He retaliated. The ensuing snowball fight lasted until they were in each other’s arms. After a kiss, they resumed their stroll.
Josh wandered out onto a large bare granite outcropping, painted with lichen, patched with snow, and fully in the sun. A marmot poked its head up to check them out, then scurried off out of view. From that vantage point, the Sangre de Cristo mountains to the north came into better view, completely snow-capped, bright on the sunny slopes, and nearly black on the shaded ones. Cars could be seen glinting in the sun in the distance. The Douglass Firs whispered their soothing words and waved their branches in the breeze.
“They don’t have this in Oklahoma,” Josh said.
“West Texas doesn’t look like this either,” she said. “Aren’t these trees cool? They make a really nice sound. Look, there’s another one of those ground hog things.”
“I bet there are no marmots in Texas.”
“Ground hogs,” she said, as one of them whistled. “We have ground hogs. They aren’t anywhere near that big.”
In half an hour, they arrived at another outcropping that had a little stone building with openings for a door and windows. “I wonder what this was?” she asked.
“The sign says it was a lookout first, and later a shelter when the tram was built.”
On a stone bench, she sat, pulled the hood of her coat up, and tied it around her face. “Is there anywhere in New Mexico where there isn’t wind?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll bet there is wind in West Texas,” he said.
“You’ve got that right. Sometimes hot air,” she snickered.
“Yeah. We have so much wind we have wind farms,” he said.
“And Texas Tech in Lubbock has a wind energy engineering division.”
They sat for part of an hour taking in the scenery. He was holding her hand, fingers interlaced, inside the pocket of her coat. Except for the breeze in the trees, it was quiet, something they rarely got to enjoy. She launched a rock over the edge, and watched it bounce, in apparent slow motion, on its way to a new resting place. A bird landed in front of her, looked her square in the eye, and then flitted away.
“How peaceful this is,” she said. “But I’m sure glad you had us bring our coats. I would not have guessed at how much colder it would be up here.”
“The air is fresh and clean, isn’t it?” he said. “I’m really glad we did this.”
Another trail took them back to the tram station, giving them a view of the ski area and the eastern slope of Sandia Peak. Skiers were enjoying the sunshine. A chipmunk chattered at them on the way to the giftshop. Inside, they looked at books, pottery, and Faith bought a stocking cap.
As she was checking out, the tram appeared over the ridge on its way up. They made their way to the loading platform and were ushered onto the last seats, facing uphill. In the warmth of the tram, she put her hood down, pushed her hair behind her ears, and was looking around at all the scenery, but Josh could hardly take his eyes off her. As their trip started down, the sun shown in Faith’s face, and Josh was stricken by the dark brown of her eyes, her freckles, and the sparkles of light from her hair. He wasn’t sure which was the better scenery. New Mexico was beautiful, all right, but…
One of the visitors saw a wolf and was pointing, but Josh couldn’t see it. The change in temperature impressed them as the tram rumbled and clattered into its landing. Holding tight to her, they exited, descended the stairs, and headed for the parking lot. By this time, it was the middle of the afternoon.
“I’m starving,” she said.
They found an ancient diner several miles from the tram station and decided to give it a try. Old fashioned hand pressed burgers with cheese in buns with hand cut potato fries adorned a tiny table. They fed each other fries, made funny faces out of pickles, and shared a hand-dipped chocolate shake.